Practices of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World offers a new intervention in the ongoing reassessment of early modern international relations. The volume addresses three key interlocking themes: who and what could claim diplomatic agency and in what circumstances; the social and cultural contexts in which diplomacy was practised; and the role of material culture in diplomatic exchange. Cumulatively, the essays by virtue of their broad geographical and chronological range further our understanding of the development of diplomatic phenomena in world history and contribute to wider debates about the nature of cross-cultural encounters and the commensurability of different political cultures.

Tracey A. Sowerby is currently a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Central European University, Budapest. She is the author of Renaissance and reform in Tudor England: the careers of Sir Richard Morison (c.1513-1556) (2010) and was PI on the AHRC funded project 'Textual ambassadors: cultures of diplomacy and literary writing in the early modern world'. Her forthcoming publications include The Tudor diplomatic corps and Tudor diplomatic culture.

Jan Hennings is Assistant Professor of History at Central European University, Budapest. His publications include Russia and Courtly Europe: Ritual and the Culture of Diplomacy, 1648-1725 (2016).

Introduction: Practices of Diplomacy. Jan Hennings and Tracey A. Sowerby

Part 1 Status and Sovereignty Beyond the State

1. Burgundian Clients in the South-Western Holy Roman Empire, 1410-1477: Between International Diplomacy and Regional Political Culture. Duncan Hardy

2. Transylvanian Envoys at Buda: Provinces and Tributaries in Ottoman International Society. Gábor Kármán

3. The City whose "ships sail on every wind": Representations of Diplomacy in the Literature of Early Modern Ragusa (Dubrovnik). Lovro Kuncevic

4. Staged Sovereignty or Aristocratic Values? Diplomatic Ceremonial at the Westphalian Peace Negotiations (1643-1648). Niels F. May

Part 2 Familiarity, Entertainment, and the Roles of Diplomatic Actors

5. Wondrous Welcome: Materiality and the Senses in Diplomatic Hospitality in Sixteenth-century Genoa. Giulia Galastro

6. Sincerity, Sterility, Scandal: Eroticizing Diplomacy in Early Seventeenth-century Opera Librettos at the French Embassy in Rome. Katharina N. Piechocki

7. 'Minister-like Cleverness, Understanding and Influence on Affairs': Ambassadresses in Everyday Business and Courtly Ceremonies at the Turn of the Eighteenth Century. Florian Kühnel

8. The Merchant-Diplomat in Comparative Perspective: Embassies to the Court of Aurangzeb, 1660-1666. Guido van Meersbergen

9. Trans-imperial Familiarity: Ottoman Ambassadors in Eighteenth-Century Vienna. David Do Paço

Part 3 Objects and Beasts

10. Presenting Noble Beasts: Gifts of Animals in Tudor and Stuart Diplomacy. Felicity Heal

11. Gift Exchange, Self-representation, and the Political Use of Objects During Ferdinand the Catholic's Reign. Germán Gamero Igea

12. Merchant-Kings and Lords of the World: Diplomatic Gift-exchange between the Dutch East India Company and the Safavid and Mughal Empires in the Seventeenth Century. Frank Birkenholz

13. The Failed Gift: Ceremony and Gift-giving in Anglo-Russian Relations, 1660-1664. Jan Hennings

Afterword: From Social Status to Sovereignty-Practices of Foreign Relations from the Renaissance to the Sattelzeit. Christian Windler